Czechoslovak Resistance

The Czechoslovak Resistance was an anti-Nazi resistance movement that was active in Czechoslovakia from 1939 to 1945 during World War II. The resistance was created after the Occupation of Czechoslovakia by Nazi Germany in 1938, and its first major act was a student demonstration at the University of Prague on 17 November 1939; all Czech universities and colleges were closed by the Nazis, who sent 1,200 students to concentration camps and had nine student leaders executed. During the war, the resistance coordinated its operations with Edvard Benes' Czechoslovak government-in-exile in London, with the Central Leadership of Home Resistance (UVOD) governing the resistance's four main groups (three of which were democratic, one of which was communist). After the 27 May 1942 assassination of Reinhard Heydrich, Adolf Hitler's third-in-command and the commander of all German forces in Czechoslovakia, the organization was doomed. Heydrich had previously had nearly all of the members of UVOD arrested in September 1941 and cut off all links between UVOD and London, and his death led to severe reprisals. The Nazis razed the towns of Lidice and Lezaky, and 1,331 people were sentenced to death in October 1942, 1,000 Prague Jews were sent to the Mauthausen concentration camp, and 252 non-Jews were also sent there. The resistance was all but annihilated after its last remaining members were arrested.